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Nine synchronized swimmers underwater in a pool.
partner

Why No Men Will Compete in Synchronized Swimming in Paris

For the first time, men are permitted to compete in artistic swimming at the 2024 Olympics. But none will.
by Vicki Valosik via Made By History on August 5, 2024
Wilbert E. Longfellow being saved from the water by a female lifeguard.
partner

Women Have the Daring to Be Real Life Savers

How a tragedy in New York City convinced Americans to learn how to swim.
by Vicki Valosik via HNN on July 16, 2024
Women's suffrage march

When Feminism Was ‘Sexist’—and Anti-Suffrage

The women who opposed their own enfranchisement in the Victorian era have little in common with the “Repeal the 19th” fringe of today.
by Mary Harrington via The American Conservative on April 15, 2024
An eight photo collage of pictures showing the proper way for women to smile

Just Wear Your Smile

Few who encounter Positive Psychology via self-help books and therapy know that its gender politics valorize the nuclear family and heterosexual monogamy.
by Micki McElya via Boston Review on September 26, 2022
Exhibit

Gender in America

An exploration of the gender norms that have shaped Americans' everyday lives and the varied efforts to push back against those social expectations.
Picture of a man mopping a gas station bathroom floor.

Believe It or Not, Gas Station Bathrooms Used to Be Squeaky Clean. Here's What Changed.

Spotless bathrooms used to be a crucial selling point for gas stations.
by Nathaniel Meyersohn via CNN on June 4, 2022
Studio portrait of American violinist Maud Powell, c. 1909

Women, Men, and Classical Music

As more women embraced music as a profession, more men became worried that the world of the orchestra was losing its masculinity.
by Livia Gershon, Gavin James Campbell via JSTOR Daily on May 23, 2022
Ida Lewis holding an oar.

Ida Lewis, "The Bravest Woman in America"

In her thirty-two years as the keeper of Lime Rock Lighthouse, Ida Lewis challenged gender roles and became a national hero.
by Jenifer Leigh van Vleck via Arlington National Cemetery on March 31, 2022
Minnie Mouse waves to visitors at the Hong Kong Disneyland
partner

The Right Worries Minnie Mouse’s Pantsuit Will Destroy Our Social Fabric. It Won’t.

Of mice and men.
by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell via Made By History on February 2, 2022
Illustration of Louise Fitzhugh smiling and holding journal.

The Tragic Misfit Behind “Harriet the Spy”

The girl sleuth, now the star of a TV show, has been eased into the canon. In the process, she’s shed the politics that motivated her creation.
by Rebecca Panovka via The New Yorker on December 9, 2021
Victorian women waving from ship

The Glamour and the Terror: Why Women in the Victorian Era Jumped at the Chance to Go to Sea

The daring women whose transatlantic journeys challenged gender roles.
by Siân Evans via Literary Hub on August 12, 2021
Potato Head family
partner

Toys Are Ditching Genders for the Same Reason They First Took Them On

Why the Potato Heads are the latest toys becoming more inclusive.
by Paul Ringel via Made By History on March 2, 2021

The Racist History of Celebrating the American Tomboy

Tomboys and the endless privileges accorded to white girls.
by Lisa Fagin Davis via Literary Hub on August 11, 2020
Women gathered around Eleanor Roosevelt at Camp Tera.

The New Deal Program that Sent Women to Summer Camp

About 8,500 women attended the camps inspired by the CCC and organized by Eleanor Roosevelt—but the "She-She-She" program was mocked and eventually abandoned.
by Erin Blakemore via HISTORY on July 7, 2020
Illustration of a man who operates the Euphonia in its female form

Mr. and Mrs. Talking Machine

The euphonia, the phonograph, and the gendering of nineteenth century mechanical speech.
by J. Martin Vest via Sounding Out on November 12, 2018
Man wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses rides a big yellow motorcycle.

How Feminists Invented the Male Midlife Crisis

Because most tales and treatises about this near-cliché of midlife crisis center on men, you might be misled to think they have nothing to do with women’s lives.
by Susanne Schmidt via Zócalo Public Square on June 1, 2018

This Is Helen Keller’s 1932 'Modern Woman'

In 1932, Hellen Keller offered some advice for the “perplexed businessman.”
by Caitlin Cadieux via The Atlantic on February 27, 2018
Katharine Hepburn, an iconic tomboy, cocking a gun in 1935.

Tomboys Were a Trend 100 Years Ago, but Mostly to Bring Up the Birth Rate for White Babies

Fear of diminishing broodstock got the gals going outdoors.
by Laura Smith via Timeline on June 21, 2017

A Short History of the Tomboy

With roots in race and gender discord, has the “tomboy” label worn out its welcome?
by Elizabeth King via The Atlantic on January 5, 2017

Up Against the Centerfold

What it was like to report on feminism for Playboy in 1969
by Susan Braudy via Jezebel on March 18, 2016
A woman waving to a man who is joining passing soldiers. From the sheet music for "The Soldier's Farewell to His Bride," 1864.
partner

The Woman’s War

Gender dynamics on the home front, and the ways in which the Civil War is distinct from other American conflicts.
via BackStory on March 31, 2011
Amelia Earhart wearing flight gear.

Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight

The aviation pioneer was many things before—and after—her career as a pilot was cut short.
by Judith Thurman via The New Yorker on September 6, 2009

My Freedom, My Choice

A new book illuminates how freedom became associated with choice and questions whether that has been a good thing—for women in particular.
by David A. Bell via New York Review of Books on June 5, 2025
Drawings of women authors

How Margaret Fuller Set Minds on Fire

High-minded and scandal-prone, a foe of marriage who dreamed of domesticity, Fuller radiated a charisma that helped ignite the fight for women’s rights.
by James Marcus via The New Yorker on June 2, 2025
Illustration of lady liberty balancing housework and child care, holding cash instead of a torch.

The World That ‘Wages for Housework’ Wanted

The 1970s campaign fought to get women paid for their work in the home—and envisioned a society built to better support motherhood.
by Lily Meyer via The Atlantic on May 23, 2025
Mary MacLane.

“I Am Making the World My Confessor”: Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal at the age of 19.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on April 23, 2025
Lindsey R. Peterson.

'Home Builders': Free Labor Households and Settler Colonialism in Western Civil War Commemorations

On the gendered dimensions of trans-Mississippi Civil War memory, the idea of the single-family household, and the politics of expansion and settlement.
by Robert D. Bland, Lindsey R. Peterson via Muster on April 23, 2025
Eugen Sandow flexing his bicep.

The Evolution of the Alpha Male Aesthetic

If you've noticed a certain look common to the manosphere, you're not mistaken. A visual identity has taken hold, with roots that trace back decades.
by Derek Guy via Bloomberg on April 22, 2025
A woman holding her head in distress, and a naked woman sitting on an illustration of a toy car pulled by string.

Frog-Free

The demystification of pregnancy.
by Erin Maglaque via London Review of Books on April 17, 2025
Several women on bicycles.

The Surprising History of Women and Bicycling

It's not about the bike or the bloomers.
by Maya Rodale via Hidden Herstories on March 31, 2025
Three members of the Wages for Housework campaign running a table and handing out pamphlets.

Home Is Where the Unpaid Labor Is

A new history traces the development and influence of the global Wages for Housework movement from its founding to present day.
by Hannah Rosefield via The New Republic on March 19, 2025
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